I'm not going to talk about the heat

My kids left for the beach today.   They aren't coming home until Wednesday or Thursday.  It's so weird.

The cat spent the afternoon laying in front of a fan in my office feeling the cold air blowing in through the window from the living room.  My office is an old Florida room and doesn't have air conditioning (except for fan in window and open door).

The standard poodle is back.  We take him and my MIL takes the kids.  Really a pretty good deal.

I spent much of the afternoon laying on the couch.  Not because of that thing I said in the post title I wouldn't talk about but because I could.   I'm reading The Kane Chronicles, Book One:  The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan.  I'm enjoying it -- although feeling a bit that it is just Percy Jackson, book one but with Egyptian mythology.   J14 is half way through the second book and I enjoy reading books with him and discussing them.

We are waiting for that thing I said I wouldn't talk about to back off a little before we walk the dogs --maybe we'll even wait until there are only two digits on the thermostat instead of three.  And yes, it is 8:09 p.m.

Then I'll settle back on the couch for some bad television, knitting and reading.   It's nice, but I miss the kids and the next few days seem to stretch out forever before me.

How to Water the Lawn

Notice that it's after 4:00 p.m. -- can now legally water the lawn.

Go out the front door.  Realize the sprinkler is in the back yard.

Go to the back yard.

Find the sprinkler.

Go back to the front yard.

Attach the sprinkler to the hose and adjust the little round nozzle adjuster thing that determines the direction of the hose (options:  full, left, center, right).

Drag the hose and sprinkler to the other side of the yard. While doing so make sure the hose is wrapped around the water faucet handle thing so that as you pull the hose it turns the water on.

Get wet.

Walk back, turn the water off.  Fix the hose.

Return to the other side of the lawn and put the sprinkler where you think it will be centered and most efficiently water the lawn and not the cars or sidewalk.

Walk back to the water faucet handle thing and turn the water on.

Look up and see that you are not watering anything.

Swear.

Walk back to the sprinkler.  Pick it up.  See that somehow the part that actually sprinkles is somehow turned to the bottom of the sprinkler.

Fix it.

Get wetter.

Put the sprinkler down.  See that you are efficiently watering the cars and sidewalk and not the lawn.

Turn the water off.

Play around with the stupid little round sprinkler adjuster thing that only has poorly drawn illustrations and no words.  Put the sprinkler down in a hopefully better spot.

Swear again.

Turn the water on.

See that now you are only watering half the lawn -- to the left of the sprinkler -- but you are watering most of the street.

Walk back, pick up the sprinkler move it to another location.

Get really stupid freaking wet.

Swear.  Swear swear swear.

Back up away from the sprinkler and realize that yes, you indeed have finally found the perfect spot for this portion of the lawn.  You can now go in the house.

Trip over the hose walking into the house.

Swear.

Readjust the placement of the sprinkler.  again.

Go inside.

Go to fridge.  Pull out vodka and grapefruit juice.

Mix.

Drink.  (By now it's 5:00 p.m. anyways).  In preparation for when you have to go out and move the sprinkler.

Here Where I'm supposed To Be

Today work is really quiet.  I find myself between projects.  I'm going to take advantage of this (it won't last long) and attack the kids room and attic.  More decluttering, giving away and tossing.  Every inch of space I create brings me a little more peace.

We do live in a small house -- two bedroom/one bath.  We are four people, two dogs and a cat.  It's crowded.  But it is more crowded than it has to be.  We have to much stuff.   The stuff we need we don't always take care of.  We don't store it properly.  It creeps up on us and before we know it we are all feeling claustrophobic.  Most of this is just habits.  Habits we can change.

The past year has been a little rough for me.  I hit a point where I didn't want to be in this town or this house.  I felt stuck and scared and trapped. I thought in order to grow I needed to be somewhere else.  I didn't realize I needed to be here in order to grow.

Last night I took M's yoga class.  She is the matron of yoga in this town.  She has been teaching for decades.  I have meant to take her class for years -- since I started practicing and heard about her.  I met her last summer when she came to my class during her annual break from teaching.  I really felt a connection with her but it's taken me almost a year to get to her class.  Meanwhile I spent plenty of time resenting the fact that I am 90 minutes from the studio and teachers where I took teacher training and feeling stuck and panicked that I couldn't take advantage of those teachers and mentors.

M is not the only incredible teacher in this town.  The teachers at the studio where I teach are incredible and have so much to teach me.

I just need to stop spending my mental time and energy yearning for another place and time and really truly be present in this space.  To learn from the people that are here.

The same goes for this house.  Years of neglect and apathy have resulted in clutter and much disrepair.  For years I have felt completely overwhelmed and incapable of doing anything about it.  I have sent a lot of blame and resentment my husband's way, using his lack of progress on major repairs as an excuse not to move forward and the things I want and can do which includes everything from daily chores to redecorating.

Something shifted in me a few months ago, although I think the shift has been coming longer other that.  I believe it's the yoga and meditation.  I believe I made some internal changes that finally made an impact on my actions.  I cleaned up the front yard.  I created space out there that shifted the energy in the house and within me.  I began a task even though it felt impossible and overwhelming.  I completed that task.  I realized I can do it.  Then I moved on to the next.

So today I am walking back into the kids room (and yes, they are helping) and getting rid of more stuff, then we'll head back upstairs.  I really believe we are going to get that space turned into J13's room. I can't wait.  I can't wait to see what it becomes and how changing our environment changes our family.

Ten Words Tuesday - decluttering

creating physical space will also create mental and spiritual space

Decluttering

Decluttering doesn't even begin to describe it.

It started with the front yard.  We have a holly bush on each front corner of the house -- both of which had grown to 12 feet.  At least.  Also about 10 boxwoods which hadn't been properly pruned in years.   Actually never once since we moved into this house 16 years ago.

In April I cut the holly bushes and boxwoods way back to nothing.  By myself.  It was an insane nasty job.  Yet it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  After that I got busy planting lots of flowers along the sidewalk and fixing up the little front porch with lots of potted plants.  It was a drastic change -- so much that neighbors we hardly ever talk to would stop when driving by and compliment me on it.  Even the UPS man complimented me on it.

Next I tackled the side yard and a bit of the back yard so we could store the trash and recycling cans back there.  I trimmed the hedges on the side of the house and weed whacked all the borders and since then I have kept very good care of my front and side lawn.  And yes, managing to keep it trimmed and watered and under control for two months (almost) is a record for me.

Our next outside task is to paint the exterior of the house.  I'm prepping for this by leaving the paint color brochure open on the table and staring at the color options every morning at breakfast.

The decluttering job I have to do in the attic and boys room makes the front yard look like, well, I don't know like what.  A walk in the park, a day at the beach.  You get the idea.

We have not really gotten rid of any toys. And my kids have a ridiculous inappropriate amount of toys.  We spoiled them.  My boss spoiled them.  My in-laws spoiled them.

Today I tried starting in the kids room but the truth is it has to be the attic first.  My excuse every summer is that it's to hot and I need to wait until it cools off.  But here in the south that means waiting until we are into October and then it's practically the holidays which has resulted in an attic so full of crap I literally could not walk past the stairs.

I've made some progress today and filled the back of our truck (a small truck, but still) with unneeded/unwanted stuff from the attic.

I'm telling you this is hard for me.  Giving away toys the kids haven't played with for years.  Really hard.  I know where J13s reluctance to give or throw anything away comes from.

But it has to be done.

I don't want to live like this anymore.  Our house is old and small  -- two bedroom/one bath.  It's full to overflowing with stuff we need.  As small as it is it is made even smaller by us not taking care of our stuff.

I can't teach my kids to care for their things unless I can care for my things.

I started this post by talking about the front yard because my progress and upkeep of the front yard has given me hope and a belief that I can take care of the inside of the house as well.

So I'm headed back up to the attic to haul some more stuff down.  The dream is that if we don't move to a larger house soon we will turn the attic into a bedroom for J13.  It already has hardwood floors and bead board walls and two skylights.  It's a great space.  If we can just clean it up and fix it up for him.  It's time he had his own space.

The truth is I feel like I have failed him, well both kids, as a parent.  That they should have a nicer house now.  Most of it is our own carelessness and a bunch of other stuff mixed in.

I just hope I can keep it up and keep making progress.